Transantiago, cura/enfermedad

Transantiago was a big change for Santiago, and a very expected one. I can say that the old system was bad, technically speaking. The buses were really old, and made really scary sounds. The drivers used to gained more money if they carried more passengers, so they raced each other for them, which was very dangerous. Since the students had always paid cheaper tickets, they weren`t lucrative passengers for them. The bus stops were not respected, and the buses stopped everywhere, causing accidents and traffic jams.

Back in the “Yellow Era” I used to live really far away from my University, and I only had 1 bus that could take me there, the “391”, a bus with which I had a love and hate relationship…
The 391 route was so long that sometimes I had to wait more than an hour until it finally arrived to my bus stop. There were very few buses that made this route, so after a while I knew them all; I recognized them for their stickers and the color of the seats and walls. I had a favorite one, because it had some really soft leather seats that made me fall asleep immediately. I developed the ability to wake up a few bus stops before mine, but one time I didn`t, and I woke up in the middle of nowhere and with no money to return. Luckily, the driver took me back for free. xD

Another thing I remember is the drivers. They were always the same ones, so I started talking with them, and after a while, they let me sit in a front seat that the old buses had, it was right next to the driver seat, and it had its own little window, it was really cute and comfortable. Those were the best trips because the drivers were really funny and had lots of stories, and they also let me choose my favorite radio (I didn`t have an ipod back then).
So, as you can see, not everything was that bad about those buses, but when I knew that they were going to change them, I thought: “it can`t get worse than now”… I wasn`t THAT wrong.

The new system had some remarkable improvements, such as the fact that you pay once and you can travel by bus and subway. The combinations, which make traveling a lot faster than before, and finally the BIP card.
But like most of the public services, Transantiago is made by a few group of people that probably haven´t travel by bus in their whole lifes. (I still remember the day that OUR President got in a bus and couldn`t use the Bip card in the right way... WTF.) Because of this, there are a lot of places where Transantiago has only made traveling more difficult than before. Places where you have to make more than 8 combinations to get to one place, places where bus stops DO not exist, routes with excess of passengers, etc, etc...

So, the service must be improved, and to do that, I think it`s imperative for politicians to put themselves in our shoes, and asked themselves: "Would I use this service?"

Stop messing with us, we don`t believe you, we are the ones with half of our bodies hanging out the door and sweating like pigs!

Zamorano: Get up earlier my ass.

Africa

My dad’s work has made me travel a lot. I was born in Concepción, and I lived there 8 years. Then, we moved to Santiago, but only for a year, because a new job offer made us move to Tocopilla, a small city in the north of Chile. After a year, we returned to the capital. All this city changes came with house changes. I think I have lived in 11 different houses, actually, my actual home is the first house we own as a family, because we always rented them. I believe that this aspect of my childhood has really influenced me. I’m really used to pack my things and go, the first couple of years in Santiago were weird because I was always expecting to move again. My father loves to travel, in fact, everytime we moved, he took us to all the cities near the one we were living at, and I really liked that, because now I can say that I have been in almost every region of my country, which is great. I still have to visit the Patagonia (arenita ;D), and I really want to go, I think is important to know your country, before the rest.

One of the reasons I chose Medicine was because it give me the opportunity to work wherever I wanted, and now in Anthropology, I think I can do the same. My dream is to visit all the continents, so it`s very difficult for me to choose one, but if I’ve had to, I would say Africa, and there, South Africa. Africa is the beginning of men, and I would love to visit that ancient culture. I have a friend that went there and talked to a woman of a tribe, and told me that her language was really unique, she made sounds with her tongue, and that sound was a word. If she made a slightly different move with her tongue, it meant a completely different word. If you didn`t do it right, you could say “I want to kill you”, instead of “I love you”.

I also love animals, and one of my favorite is the elephant. I think there are gorgeous, their skin, their size, everything. One of my dreams is to watch them in their habitats with the rest of the salvage animals.

I don`t want to live in Africa forever, but I`d love to stay there for a while and help people, especially the kids with nutritional problems and deceases. I would also like to visit Darfur, a region of Sudan which has a lot of political and ecological problems.

La segunda parte no siempre es mala.

I was very scared and also very excited to start my first semester in Antrophology.
Leaving Medicine was a huge decision to make, and my parents were not very pleased about the new degree I decided to study. I felt the voice of my dad in my head telling me "THIS IS THE LAST DEGREE I'M PAYING FOR YOU, SO YOU BETTER LIKE IT!" But I also felt the freedom of choosing for myself, of doing what I really wanted to do, and not what my parents wanted me to do. So, with those mixed feelings inside of me I entered the classroom.
Luckily, I think I made the right decision. I know I'm just starting but I really feel this is the right place for me. I love Anthropology, the things I'm learning about the human being, about me, how it completes me. I've always been a person with a lot of interests, and I never felt "filled" in Med school. That feeling of leaving parts of myself aside, to focus on what I must, was awful. I don't have that feeling now. I had time to dance salsa again, something I really like, and to theatre, wich I love.
I also have to mentioned the great new friends I have made. They have helped me so much, I don't think they really know it. The first couple of months were not easy for me, I had a constant fight with my parents, trying to make them interested in my new life. I was kind of depressed about that, and my friends helped me to relaxe and smile more. I have the best time when I'm around them.
Everything is better today. I can't say that my parents LOVE my degree, but they are learning to accept it, and trying to be more involved in my study. And that makes me really happy. :D